Dirty Jobs To Feature Contador's Summer Work At Astana

Yazoo! News : Mike Rowe, the charismatic face of Discovery's Dirty Jobs TV show, had been soliciting viewers for their own videos of dirty jobs performed by them in order to get new ideas for next year. And now it seems he has a finalist.

Pro winningest cyclist Contador and his management staff were browsing the internet on a Spanish beach 2 months back and had chanced upon Rowe's website. Which is when they got the idea of submitting Contador's summer work earlier this year in the Tour de France as video input to Discovery. Rowe confirmed this morning that he took a good look at the submission and just loves it!

Contador, the best cyclist in the world, had the worst job possible at the Tour when he was asked to serve a retired veteran on his own team. This came on top of the aspirations he had to bag another Grand Tour which made the whole affair a complete living albatross around the neck.

Dirty jobs for Contador included fixing the veteran's flats on the course, serving him meals and preparing tea for him back in the hotel while watching him play on his mobile phone. Not only was the psychological pressure high and team equipment/leadership not guaranteed to him, but he also had to battle the veteran's Twitter attacks while ousting him and others on steep climbs.

It didn't end there. While lifting the Tour trophy at Paris on the final day, he also had to engage the veteran's smirks and awkward facial gestures with a number of 'pistol rounds'. After 21 days of hard effort, it wasn't surprising he couldn't aim the invisible rounds correctly which made them go astray and hit a couple of Tour officials in the earlobes. The aggravated officials screwed up his day in return by playing him the Danish national anthem.


Contador has advised Rowe that to feature this particular dirty job on his show, hard hat would be a Giro helmet, work boots would be strictly white Sidis and clothes would be the old team apparel kept in a chest at home.

Rowe will spend this winter at a training camp with Contador. While plenty of hill climbing repeats are on the agenda, other drills include training the Discovery Channel man at getting the pistol shooting precise and returning Twitter attacks with competitive Spanish volleys. Sources say Rowe is planning to train an additional 5 hours everyday at the shooting range with bare hands. He will also be attending classes in 'Spanish Insults' at a local university.

* * *